Released in 1954, Suddenly is a tense little thriller that is worth seeing. Frank Sinatra stars as Johnny Baron, a hit man who has been hired to assassinate the President. Sterling Hayden co-stars as Tod Shaw, sheriff of the small town of Suddenly, CA, where the President is scheduled to pass through on a hunting trip. Baron and his two accomplices hold the sheriff and his girlfriend's family hostage in a house overlooking the train station as they wait for the President to show up.
Although written directly for the screen by Richard Sale, the film has the feel of a stage play adaptation for most of its running time. It takes place mostly in a single room in near real time, with various characters making speeches to each other. Sinatra's character is a veteran who learned he is only good at killing and in one of the longer, more forced speeches in the film, tells how guns give him power in a society where he is otherwise powerless. So yeah, in places, the film feels stagey and false.
But aside from a few bits of dramatic license, the plot is tight and the tension grows with each tick of the clock. And in contrast to the hokum of his big centerpiece speech, Sinatra has a moment in the middle of the picture, a silent shot of him with a maniacal grin only a couple of seconds long, that manages to be more convincing and more disturbing than anything he says in the rest of the film. It's one of the film's moments of pure gold. The film is dated, but well worth watching for fans of crime drama.
The film is in the public domain (having been pulled from circulation after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963) and can be watched on-line for free at the Internet Archive here.
Comments